


Stuffed full of love

by Zalakbian



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Agender!Byleth, Clueless lesbians, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Stuffed Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25920721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalakbian/pseuds/Zalakbian
Summary: Edelgard is a bit embarrassed to admit she's lost her prized stuffy bear, thankfully Byleth is there to understand and help her look for it.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	Stuffed full of love

**Author's Note:**

> This was requested by the lovely [Woofskaya](https://twitter.com/woofskaya), go check out their awesome art and fics!
> 
> Big thanks to my wonderful gf Kathryn for helping to beta this, I love you <3
> 
> If you like this, please consider joining to talk about it on the [Edeleth Discord Server](https://discord.gg/m2AVbJ3) I run! You can also [follow me on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/MariMari07_01)

Today was like any other war council day for Byleth, only with a familiar face strangely absent. Ever since returning to the fight a few months ago they’d taken to their new role as general with aplomb, with weekly council sessions that ended up not too different from the weekly classes they led as professor. Except, for the first time ever one of the seats at Byleth’s side was empty, as the Adrestian Emperor was nowhere to be seen. They glanced over at Hubert just before the session was due to start, with the minister simply shaking his head in ignorance over where Edelgard was, or why she was not present. It was so unlike her to even be late, let alone completely absent, only happening once during their academy days when Edelgard’s nightmares had robbed her of too much sleep, as Byleth had later learned. They knew it was still happening, as it was easy to see the occasional set of bags and tired eyes that Edelgard tried so hard to hide, which Byleth so badly wanted to help with. They still began and ended the session as normally, but the first thing the professor was going to do afterwards was check in on their former pupil, if only to make sure she was alright.

“Are you in there, Edelgard?” Byleth asked as they rapped on the Emperor’s door. “We all missed you at council, is something wrong?” 

There was no immediate reply, but as the former professor listened closer they could begin to hear the telltale sounds of weeping behind the heavy oak door. Byleth’s hand rested on the door handle, they wanted to come in and help Edelgard with whatever was troubling her, but one of the biggest things she had learned from her former students was respecting others boundaries. If Edelgard wanted them in, she would ask for Byleth to do so.

“My teacher? Is that you?” A voice eventually answered back, Byleth was sure it was Edelgard’s.

“I can hear you crying, can I come in please?” Byleth requested, and then bit their lip. They’d been in this position many times, hearing sounds of Edelgard in distress, asking if there was any way they could help, but the door always remained closed. Sometimes they would both talk through the door, other times Edelgard asked to and was left alone, but to hear her still in turmoil five years later, it made Byleth want to try even harder to reach out, to get Edelgard to try and open up more to her. “Please, El?” Byleth added. “I just want to help you.”

There was a brief pause, and eventually Edelgard called back, “Come in.” Byleth entered without hesitation.

Almost immediately Byleth could tell something was gravely wrong, given the state of the Emperor’s room. Edelgard was seated on the ground against the bed frame still in her casual wear, but all around her were strewn about clothes, emptied out closet drawers, overturned bins, and even the bed mattress was propped up on its side sans sheets, leaning against the wall. But Byleth didn’t pay attention to the carnage for long, instead carefully walking over the length of the room to sit down next to Edelgard, who right away seemed to lean up against them for comfort. There they both sat, Byleth holding Edelgard’s gloved hand firmly as she slowly calmed down, feeling her thumb rub over her bandaged callouses, just waiting for the right time to say something.

“Did… did you hurt your hand?” Edelgard asked in a stupor, calling to mind the few bits of wrap around some of their phalanges, as well as seemingly ignoring her own predicament. Byleth held up the hand the Emperor was referring to and shrugged it off.

“Just me being clumsy, it’s nothing.” They claimed. “Do you want to talk about what’s upsetting you?” Byleth eventually asked after another long silence, looking deeply into Edelgard’s blurry, lilac irises. The Emperor broke eyesight quickly, choosing instead to stare forlorn at the ground. In truth she lost something very precious, and had torn her room apart looking for it, but to tell Byleth exactly what was so dear to her, it felt almost infantilizing.

“You’ll find it silly.” Edelgard choked out.

Byleth gripped her hand tighter, shifting their body slightly to get a better look at their former student. “I highly doubt that. I’m not here to judge, El, I promise.”

Edelgard stretched her lips tight, clearly struggling to come up with the will to speak. She ultimately leaned close in order to whisper, even though there was nobody else in the room.

“I think I lost Eddie.” Edelgard sniffled out. Byleth blinked a few times, with Edelgard quickly elaborating. “My stuffie bear, Eddie… I swear he was right by my pillow as always, but when I came into my room he was nowhere to be seen.” Her usual commanding voice was painfully stricken with nasally tones from all the emotions, tempting Byleth to fully embrace her even harder, though they held off so as not to infringe on Edelgard’s boundaries.

“I’m guessing by… all this, that you searched everywhere in your room?” Byleth asked, with Edelgard nodding tersely in confirmation. “Well, let’s try and think about this more carefully then.” The former professor suggested, putting on her ‘teacher’ voice for emphasis. “If Eddie isn’t here, then he must be somewhere outside your room. Do you ever bring him outside?”

Edelgard looked back up, with her legs bouncing in anxiety and thought. “Uhhh… n-no, I don’t ever let Eddie leave my room, no.” She answered authoritatively.

“What about someone else? Maybe someone came in and took him?”

“My teacher… Why would someone steal a princess’ old stuffy bear?”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t on purpose, maybe someone took Eddie without intending to?” Byleth further suggested. Edelgard wanted to ask what they meant, but realization came quickly, and the Emperor slapped her forehead in disbelief.

“Today…” Edelgard looked back to her bare mattress.

“...Is laundry day.” Byleth finished, and they both stood up and sped off.

The two certainly surprised the cleaning staff, an Emperor and General barging into the washing room unannounced was certainly a rare occurrence, doubly so when Edelgard shouted for everyone to, “Stop what you’re doing, immediately!”

“What should I be looking for, Edelgard?” Byleth asked, already ripping through one of the bins filled with linens to be washed.

Edelgard was already starting on her own pile, just tearing sheet after sheet out and onto the stone floor without any regard, confounding the staff even further. “Uhhh, right!” She acknowledged, stopping briefly to reply in full. “He’s light brown, but a lot of fur is missing… old and worn, a bit chewed up in places, and stitched up with a lot of black thread!”

Byleth gave a thumbs up and then decided it would be easier to simply pick up one of the large laundry bins and turn it upside down, spilling the contents all over the laundry room floor in an avalanche of white, grey and brown colours. Edelgard added another such bin to the pile before joining Byleth on her knees, sifting through the sheets and cloth looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Eventually one tug of the hand opened a path, a circle of leather shaped like an eye stared back at the former professor.

“Ah! El, I found him!” Byleth called out, but as they tried to pull the lost stuffie out of the pile, a horrid squeal of tearing fabric filled the air. A shocked silence grew as Byleth held up the decapitated head of Eddie the stuffy bear, Edelgard watching in shock as bits of straw, sawdust and wood pulp dripped out from the open wound where his neck would be. Byleth grew white as their gaze passed between Edelgard’s horrified look, and the old stuffy head they were holding. Not helping was the ear they were holding onto beginning to dangle dangerously from a few lone threads before there was one last soft thud, and the former professor had naught but a single scrap of chewed up fabric between her bandaged up fingers. Edelgard was eerily quiet as the two searched for and eventually retrieved all of Eddie’s pieces, carefully laying them together in a small basket graciously offered by one of the staff. To Byleth it looked like her former pupil might start to cry any minute, but she was oddly composed as they walked together back up to the Emperor’s room, at least until they stepped back inside.

“So, El… Do you need help putting him back together?” Byleth nervously asked, their brow beginning to get dangerously sweaty. “I could ask Bernie for help, she-”

“Byleth.” Edelgard suddenly interrupted, her back still to the former professor.

“Yes?”

“Get out.” And she slammed the door shut as soon as they had stepped back.

Byleth had heard Edelgard in a multitude of emotional states: happy, content, proud, morose, depressed, disgusted to name a few, but they had never heard her sound so hurt before. It shook them to their core. The next few days Byleth hardly saw Edelgard at all, not at training, mealtime or the gardens, and they didn’t try to speak to her. Byleth knew Edelgard was just upset about her prized teddy, there was no way she’d suspect Byleth of intentionally hurting him. So, their plan was to simply wait until Edelgard had gotten past it, alongside working on a small gift they’d been intended to give to her for a while now. Almost a week after the incident, on a particularly nasty and rainy day, Byleth was startled out of some late night work by a knock on their door this time. Opening the door revealed it was Edelgard. Her hair was down from its buns, instead simply tied behind her head, telltale signs that she was about to retire to bed, along with the stitched and stuffed back together stuffy bear in her arms.

“Hello, El.” Byleth answered with a bit of a muffle, as they were currently sucking on the tip of their index finger.

Edelgard was looking a little red, and had a hard time looking Byleth in their eyes, instead meandering off lazily to the side. “My teacher… may I come in?” She asked.

Popping her finger back out, Byleth requested a few more moments, shutting the door and emerging back around a minute later with a smile and, “Ready!” They beckoned for the Emperor to come on in.

Edelgard replied with a brief, “Thank you.” And stepped inside. She’d been inside the professor’s room once before, to offer her advice after Jeralt’s murder, and it still looked pretty much exactly the same, being very plain, hardly decorated and overall quite sparse. However, there were a few fresh looking pink carnations resting in a small vase on Byleth’s table next to a pair of shears, that was new. Edelgard slowly took a seat on the bed, across from Byleth, and she held Eddie close and tightly, the top of his head just covering the Emperor’s mouth. “My teacher… Byleth, I just… I wanted to apologize for snapping at you. I know it was just an accident, it’s just Eddie is-” She stopped as Byleth held their hand up seemingly to cut in.

“It’s ok El, you don’t need to apologize, and you don't need to tell me the specifics. I know exactly how you felt… I think.” They claimed. Byleth continued to stand, but the former professor began to sway slightly from side to side as they continued their story, enough for Edelgard to notice that they seemed to be holding something behind their back. “I used to have a prized stuffy when I was a child. She was an old, grey, bunny rabbit named Molly, a hand me down, and missing half an ear, but I still loved her dearly.”

Edelgard was very intrigued, as she never thought the supposedly cold, hard Ashen Demon would ever find joy in such a cute and childish toy. “What happened to Molly?” She asked, as Edelgard had never seen such a stuffie anywhere in the professor’s room.

“For the longest time, Molly and I were inseparable.” Byleth continued, eventually stepping forward just a touch. “I’d carry her everywhere, and if I wasn’t allowed to, I’d just sit down and pout until dad gave her back. But one day dad grabbed me in the middle of the night and said we were leaving, I think maybe he was running from something… anyway, I wasn’t able to grab Molly, so she ended up being left behind. I don’t think I spoke a single word to dad for months.”

“I’m so sorry, Byleth.” Edelgard consoled, with Byleth smiling back and thanking her for the kind words.

“I figured you probably felt the same, and… this was never meant to be a replacement, just… I made this for you.” And Byleth revealed a small, indigo coloured teddy from behind their back. “Here you go, El. I hope this helps you sleep at night better.”

_“El! El! Sorry to hear about your nightmares… so Clara, Liza, Max and I made this for you! ...I hope he helps you to sleep soundly!”_

Edelgard was in awe, “My teacher, I…” She stopped her words and put Eddie temporarily to the side in order to hold the stuffy that Byleth had made for her. It was bit heavily lopsided in proportions, with arms and ears that weren’t quite aligned properly, a drooping sword and shield made of grey fabric, along with a set of button eyes, bead nose and stitched smile that to some would probably look more horrifying than cute, but to Edelgard it was one of the greatest gifts she’d ever received.

“My needlework can use definite improvement, those things are ridiculously sharp.” Byleth claimed, then further elaborated, “The sword and shield are to help you feel safe while sleeping. I thought maybe knowing you had a knight to watch over you would be nice.”

Edelgard however was too busy admiring her gifts, both old and new, in each hand, and rather than inadequately express her gratitude through words, she instead leapt up and took Byleth into a strong hug. There she embraced all her beloved in one large embrace, probably lasting far longer than the amount that would be considered between friends, but Byleth didn’t mind at all, and returned the hug for as long as Edelgard wanted to.

From now on, Eddie was always joined by a new companion on Edelgard’s bed, always carefully arranged while she was out such that the two were holding hands.


End file.
